Another Day, Another Apocalypse
by and a toy in blood
Summary: Making a name for yourself as a villain in Gotham isn't easy, especially as there are already so many loonies running around. Mercy is sure she can make the Rogue Gallery sit up - but what about the others in her team? After all, you can only be so crazy.
1. Chapter 1

Mercy Graham looked around the hideout, her face entirely blank. It'd been a month since they'd first been declared on the news and they'd executed several heists since then ... but she seemed to be the only one taking this new way of life at all seriously. To the others it was just a game, something new and interesting to do, just a new role to play. No matter. It'd soon sink in for them and they could start the serious things. Mercy didn't want to attract the attention of the Batman until she knew the others were fully prepared and resolute about the new lifestyle. She knew they would accept it soon - she just had to wait.

She picked her scythe up from where it was leaning against her winged armchair and began to sharpen it, glancing surreptitiously around the room, analysing what the others where doing.

Sebastian Knight was tending to his weapons too but he had a great many more than any of the others. Knives, guns, swords, bombs and knuckledusters lay scattered on the floor around him. His white-blond hair insisted on falling into his handsome face and he had to reach up every few minutes to push it away. He was currently polishing a large halberd and looking utterly content. Mercy smiled slightly; Sebastian only ever seemed to be happy when he was either looking after his weapons or using them.

Lyn Cropper was sitting in the corner, cooing over her cage of locusts, a pair of bronze scales lay forgotten on the ground next to her. A mass of red-brown curls framed her face and her high cheekbones cast shadows over the taut skin. Mercy could see the bones in Lyn's hands shift as her fingers tapped the glass walls of the cage, teasing the bugs within. She glanced up at Mercy and grinned, showing sharp milk-white teeth. Her face was drawn and there were deep dark shadows under her eyes but Lyn always _seemed_ cheerful.

Thomas Leach was the only one of the four at a table. He was fiddling around with vials and beakers, his long dark brown hair tied back with a sickly-yellow ribbon and a silver crown atop his head. Mercy didn't know _how_ he was doing it but she knew exactly _what_ he was doing. Creating a strain of diseases that would come in liquid form. Until he had perfected it he would settle for using poisons to make the citizens of Gotham hideously ill but what Thomas was working towards was a way to pass influenza and measles on without the victim going anywhere near someone infected. His final goal was the plague but for now he would also like to find some way of stopping school from organising immunisations.

Mercy smiled again at the others' efforts. They were all aiming to cause chaos - but not to kill. Never to kill. They were far too scared, far too _good_ to ever think of taking another's life. Sebastian came closest to that line but even he would only maim or grievously injure. No, that final honour went to her, the most ruthless of all of them.

War had his sword. Famine had her scales. Pestilence had his crown. And Death had her cruelty.

Gotham City would _burn._


	2. Chapter 2

Mercy smiled to herself. Thomas had carefully put down his vials and was staring into space with a look on his face that could only be described as revelation. She had suspected Thomas would be the first to fully realise what he could do, how much power could be grasped if he just let go of the normal rules that bound every other member of society to their mundane little lives. Evidently, this suspicion had just been confirmed.

She knew that all previous times had been mere shadows of real crimes. Lyn had trashed a bakery or two, Thomas had shut down the power supply to one floor of a hospital, and Sebastian had started several street fights. The only reason they were being noticed at all was because of their theme. If they hadn't been costumed at the time then they would probably have been completely ignored.

Each was instantly recognizable; there was Mercy in a long midnight black dress, tiny delicate hourglasses attached to a rope around her waist, and her scythe in her hands.

Thomas wore a cruel parody of a doctor's scrubs with a lab coat over the top, stained around the edges by whatever chemicals he'd been experimenting with. Vials of poison were in the lab coat pockets and when - or if - he ever achieved his goal of the liquid disease then vials of those would be in his pockets as well. He wore his silver crown arrogantly, sneering down at anyone who _dared_ to question him.

Lyn wore a tattered brown peasant dress that made her look more skeletal than ever and a length of cord, to which her scales were tied, was wound in an intricate fashion around her tiny waist. She carried her cage of locusts in one hand and a small dagger in the other.

Sebastian dressed in light armour with an array of weapons upon him - which of them he took with him varied as it was impossible for him carry them all - but the one that he always chose was _the_ sword.

The costumes were intricate but the crimes were ridiculous and Mercy couldn't help but feel that everyone viewed them as little kids, playing dress-up … or worse, as hopeless wannabes. Mercy hated that feeling, but knew she had to be patient. Thomas had already come to his senses - although the fact that he had been staring into space for the last fifteen minutes was a tad disconcerting - and soon Lyn and Sebastian would too. She just had to wait.

And then, when the others finally realised that the only thing stopping them from breaking the rules was their own fear of punishment, Gotham City would experience the Apocalypse. Everyday, Gothamites would cower at the thought of the Four Horsemen - Mercy made a mental note to find someway to factor this into the costumes, obviously real horses wouldn't work - and every night children would stay awake for fear that Pestilence would poison them, War would destroy their homes, Famine would steal the food straight out of their gluttonous mouths.

And she, Mercy, would be welcomed into each home as a relief from the daily pain of living in such a way. She would be thought of as an unlikely forgiveness, an escape from the torture that was life in Gotham. And she would allow that final pity and gladly take their pathetic lives from them.

Mercy just had to wait.


End file.
